OER Readiness in Africa

OER Readiness in Africa
D. L. Manzolillo Nightingale
©
A report submitted to the OLnet Project, August 2010

by Pauline Ngimwa, PhD Student, Open University, UK
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by a CREET scholarship at the Open University. I would like
to acknowledge the support and guidance provided by my PhD supervisors and staff
from OLnet and TESSA projects. I am grateful to TESSA participants in Uganda,
Kenya and South Africa, who generously gave useful data. For more information
about the OLnet project, TESSA project and CREET please see chapters 6, 7 and 8.
Special thanks to the Open University’s Managing Heritage, Building Peace: Museums,
memorialisation and the uses of memory in Kenya Research Project for giving
permission to use their images. For further details about this project see:
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/memorialisation/index.html
Also thanks to the creators of other images used in this publication sourced from
flickr (www.flickr.com) and available for use under a Creative Commons licence.
Each image has attribution in the index of images.
Edited by Janet Dyson, Project Co-ordinator, OLnet, August 2010
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence
(for the terms of this licence see:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/)
Original report produced January 2010

Image Credits
Front Cover By D. L. Manzolillo Nightingale, Women dancing in traditional

dress. Annual cultural show organised by Simba Maasai
Outreach Organization (SIMOO), held at Olosho-oibor
villages
Title page D. L. Manzolillo Nightingale, as above
Photo Page By Mobile Learning for Development, Lagos 2010 (Flickr);

CC-By-NC-SA;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ml4d/4398885268
Page 1 By Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, Aisha Project School
Page 6 By Dave Patten (Flickr) CC-By-NC-SA

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davepatten/124418044
Page 7 By The Lizard Queen (Flickr) CC-By

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizard_queen/114587853
Page 11 By OER Africa (Flickr); CC-By;

IADP-SADC: UCM Midwifery Course
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oerafrica/4629749352
Page 13 By Pauline Ngimwa – a primary school weather station
Page 15 By Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, OER at Aisha Project

School
Page 22 By Open Access Week, http://www.openaccessweek.org/
Page 22 By Pauline Ngimwa – Open Access Publicity

Page 25 By Karega-Munene, Akamba Museum at Kyanzasu, Giriam
Elders
Page 36 By Karen Cropper
Page 40 By Heather Scott, Visit to Agikuyu Community Peace

Museum, Nyeri, Kenya May 2010
Page 42 By Erik Harsman (Flickr); CC-By;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2736565604
Page 46 From OER10, http://www.ucel.ac.uk/oer10/gallery.html
Page 47 By OLnet Project; CC-By; Most of the OLnet Team with

Cathy Casserly, from the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching
Page 49 TESSA website
Page 55 By Regents of the University of Michigan, Knust Library

(Flickr); CC-By; http://www.flickr.com/photos/oerafrica
/4924486206
Page 58 A word cloud generated from all the text within this
publication using www.wordle.net
Back Cover By Chubby Chandru (Flickr); CC-By;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chubbychandru/3694510933
Contents
1. Executive Summary 1
2. Introduction 8
3. Methodology 9
4. Findings 10
5. Conclusion 41
6. OLnet 45
7. TESSA 48
8. CREET 51
9. How this publication was produced 53
10. Useful OER links 56

CC-By-NC-SA: Mobile Learning for Development
Executive summary
1 Executive summary
Introduction
The aim of this small scale project was to assess Africa’s readiness to
adopt OER1. This involved an assessment of the technical and human
related factors. By technical factors the study was to look at the status of
existing technological infrastructure, establish the extent it supports
creation, access and use/re-use of OER, and identify existing gaps or
limitations. The human factors consisted of elements such as skills
levels, perceptions and attitudes.

CC-By: Andreia Inamorato Dos Santos
1 Open Educational Resources
1
Methodology
The study was carried out as part of an ongoing PhD project. A
qualitative research approach was adopted with in-depth semi structured
interviews. Ten participants were interviewed across higher education
institutions in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa where TESSA2 project
is present.
Key findings
The study revealed that there is a positive perception of OER among

people who are already using them. They acknowledge them as quality,
relevant and current resources; a cheaper
“it is too costly buying
textbooks all the time alternative to the high cost of educational
and paying subscription materials which some of these institutions
fees for journals and some
of this material is cannot afford; and a means of expanding
available for free” equitable access to education. Examples of
how these resources are being used include the adaptation of the TESSA
materials in teaching practice and development of activities round
TESSA materials in primary schools, i.e. a school weather station.
2 Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (http://www.tessafrica.net/)
2
Executive summary
In relation to readiness to adopt OER, the study established that levels

of and factors affecting the adoption vary across different regions. For
example the situation in Uganda and Kenya tend to be similar and quite
different from that in South Africa. In terms of technological challenges,
both Kenya and Uganda suffer from inadequate networked computers
and poor internet connectivity, although there is optimism that the
situation may improve with the arrival of the fibre optic cable on the
eastern coast of Africa. Users outside the universities face challenges of
limited computer access, poor internet connectivity and in some cases
lack of electricity. However, access to the level of technology
development in South Africa is quite different. Universities are well
resourced and some of the schools including the rural ones have access
to basic computer facilities.
The study established that technology is not really an impediment

towards OER adoption because there are alternative approaches, some
of which are working well. These include prints, CDs and cached
downloads. One institution is applying “Vygotsky’s zone of proximal
development” theory to help users overcome their ignorance around
ICT application.
The study however established that the fundamental impediment

affecting adoption of OER is human related factors. These include
attitudes towards the open content which in turn affect people’s capacity
3
to use, re-use and share these resources. There are issues around
misconception of what OER are; the concept of ownership and sharing;
and limiting capacity to use OER. Examples of misconception of OER
included OER being perceived as time wasting or extra work, and
people not realizing that they are engaging with OER i.e. a medical
academic who is developing open digital images of tropical diseases; a
music digitization project for the public; librarians engaging in
campaigns towards an open access movement; as well as some of the
users of the TESSA materials.
People’s attitudes affected the concept of ownership and sharing. This

included issues such as a “not invented here syndrome” where
academics were resistant to take up materials they have not developed as
they felt this eroded their academic pride; the perception that these
resources are from the West and thus reducing African academics to
consumers and not partners; a culturally oral society and hence not used
to sharing digitally; fear of public scrutiny of and lack of confidence in
ones work and unawareness that users can share back what they have
recreated. Technological challenges also affected sharing because people
are not always in a digital mindset.
“They would not want it to be

Human capacity to adopt OER was known that they cannot use the
computer so they keep off.”
found to be limiting particularly among
the older academics most of who have computer phobia and tend to
4
Executive summary
keep off the technology. The younger generation is at ease with the
technology and more likely to accept these resources.
IPR3 of institutional and academic output was highlighted as an

important issue that is affecting the adoption of OER in Africa. This
included complex processes in clearing licences while converting already
existing content into OER; resistance to go open because of the
economic benefits attached to copyrighted materials and national and
institutional policies that tend to favour copyrighted resources because
academics and institutions are funded or promoted on the basis of the
amount of publications they have in accredited journals.
Effects of policies also impacted on academics’ readiness to share and

collaborate with others such as librarians in a digital environment.
Where institutions had clear policies on how digital content should be
handled, this resulted to academics and librarians working together as
opposed to where such policies were non existent.
Finally, the study identified certain suggestions to mitigate the identified

challenges affecting OER adoption. These included sensitization
campaigns across all levels including policy makers; versioning for the
3 Intellectual Property Rights
5
African context in terms of content and technology adopted, using the

approach taken by the TESSA project as an example.
Mobile technology which is so
widespread in Africa is an option
that can be explored as a platform
for OER delivery. Understanding
users’ technological profiles was
CC-By-NC-SA: Dave Patten
highlighted as an important starting

point in the contextualisation
process. Other suggestions included
advocacy work around open access
publishing and encouraging people to have a paradigm shift so as to
embrace the possibilities of a technically enabled environment.
The study concludes that Africa has pockets of readiness going by the
conventional understanding of OER readiness. However, human related
factors remain the fundamental impediment towards readiness for OER
in this region.
6
CC-By: Lizard Queen
7
Executive summary
2 Introduction
The aim of this small scale project was to assess Africa’s readiness to
adopt OER. This involved an assessment of the technical and human
related factors. By technical factors the study was to look at the status of
existing technological infrastructure, establish the extent it supports
creation, access and use/re-use of OER and identify existing gaps or
limitations. The human factors consisted of elements such as skill levels,
perceptions and attitudes.
This report summarises the findings of the project and the conclusions
drawn from these findings. A brief statement of the methodology that
was adopted is first provided.
8
Methodology
3 Methodology
This study was carried out within a larger research that is part of an
ongoing PhD project whose aim is to design a process model for
supporting the development of a collaborative educational digital library
for African higher education. A qualitative research approach was
adopted. Three African countries were visited and in-depth semi-
structured interviews conducted in institutions of higher learning where
OER are being used. Data was analyzed thematically. The TESSA
project was used as an example of OER adoption. So the study targeted
people who are already involved in the TESSA project. Specifically,
interviews were conducted with three participants at Egerton University
in Kenya; two participants at Makerere University in Uganda; three
participants at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, one academic
at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and an education specialist at
the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE). In total
ten participants were interviewed. The study took place between
September and October of 2009.
9
4 Findings
Broadly speaking, the study established that levels of and factors

affecting OER adoption vary across the different regions and countries
visited. For example the situation in Uganda and Kenya tend to be
similar and quite different from that in South Africa. Another key
finding was that levels of awareness largely affected adoption of OER
and how they are being used. Although technological impediments exist,
human related factors such as attitudes towards open content and
capacity to deal with it were cited as a fundamental factor affecting
adoption. National and institutional policies too have had their impact
on the adoption.
This section presents these findings with supporting excerpts from

individual interviews. It starts by providing an overview of the various
perceptions of OER among people who are already using them and
examples of how they are being used. It then presents issues related to
technology and human factors. This is followed by issues around
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and how they affect adoption, and
10
Findings
then how national and institutional policies contribute to IPR challenges.

The section ends with participants’ suggestions on how the challenges
impeding on the adoption of these resources can be mitigated.
CC-By: OER Africa
General perception and usage of OER

Interviews were mainly conducted among people who have already been
converted to the OER movement. So they are already positive about
OER and most often take up the role of advocacy. They are also using
them in their teaching practices as well as in creating similar resources. It
11
can therefore be understood why most of their views concerning OER

were positive. For example they viewed these resources as quality,
relevant and current. They are a cheaper alternative that has come to fill
a gap created by the high cost of educational materials which some of
these institutions cannot afford:
“… I would say that digital materials you are looking for current materials,
quality materials, relevant material but you are also looking at issues of
cheaper access, like I have said, it is too costly buying textbooks all the time
and paying subscription fees for journals and some of this material is
available for free, free in the sense that you are not paying for the material
although you are paying for the internet, and maybe if you are going to print
you will pay for printing, but that is relatively cheaper than the actual
resource.” Makerere University 2
They also saw them as a means of expanding equitable access to

education.
“…when we think access and the core mission of our organization is to

increase equitable access to education, when we think access in a digital
environment, access will have to have a digital component.” SAIDE
Examples were provided of how some academics are using these

resources innovatively with or without the technology. This included
certain academics who have made TESSA materials a major resource in
teaching methodologies. One institution has actually enforced the
adaptation of these resources during teaching practice and made it part
of their assessment.
12
Findings
Another example where TESSA materials have been used innovatively

to create a positive impact in teaching is where a primary school teacher
in Kenya used the materials with his pupils to create a weather station
from scrap materials (see illustration below). This teacher has no access
to the technology and used the TESSA materials as print. The quotation
below describes his motivation to create the weather station from the
TESSA materials, how he went about it and the impact this has had in
his teaching:
CC-By: Pauline Ngimwa
“… I realised that the topic weather that is in our Kenyan curriculum is

taught across all the classes and in all subjects. So I decided to carry out this
13
activity of the weather station, to even make easy my teaching and make
learning more interesting. I went through TESSA materials and saw how I
could make these instruments. I then used my learners to collect some of the
materials that are locally available … We set up the station and it became
very interesting. I can see some change because right from class one, they go to
the station to learn with their teachers. If they are teaching about wind, they
can see a compass; they can see a wind vane, where the wind is coming from,
where it is going, how it is measured. Also in advanced classes they are now
able to read thermometers and interpret, we have also been measuring the
amount of the rainfall. Because we are approaching towards the end of the
year, I can see that it is of great success because right now from class 1-8, we
were trying subject panels analysis we were seeing that the topic weather is no
longer a problem with our students, even the small learners they have
understood it, they have improved. Because we can analyse our examination
questions, and we look if they have improved and we can see that in almost
all the children are not having any problem with questions dealing with
weather, they are getting almost everything. Egerton University 1
14
Findings
Technological factors
Status of technology
Technological related limitations in terms of infrastructure and human
capacity are a major factor affecting the OER adoption in the countries
visited. However, the situation in
CC-By: Andreia Inamorato Dos Santos
South Africa is more improved than

that in Kenya and Uganda. In both
Kenya and Uganda, access to
networked computers is limited to the
universities and in most cases internet
connectivity is poor. Nevertheless,
there is optimism among users that the situation will improve with the
arrival of the broadband through the fibre optic cable on the eastern
coast of Africa.
“But we get encouraged by the fact that we are having things here called fibre
optic. It is being networked across the country and of course if the access costs
can come down…” Egerton University 3
Users outside the universities have to grapple with not just poor internet
connectivity but the actual access to the computers. In some rural
schools, power is also a challenge as they tend to be outside the
electricity grid.
15
“…the bulk of the teachers we work with come from schools that do not
necessarily have sufficient machines for people to work with…” Makerere
University 2
However, it was noted that access to the technology in South Africa is

different. Universities are well resourced and some of the schools even
those in the rural areas at least have access to basic computer facilities:
“Every academic is entitled to either a laptop or a desktop… The heads of

departments have access to 3G cards so they can put a 3G card in their
laptops or if they want they can use their 3G phones, most people have got
smart phones, they have got blackberries, the Nokia communicators.”
UNISA
Different views towards technology challenges
Some participants particularly from South Africa expressed the fact that
technology and associated costs are really not the issue against OER
adoption. According to them, the real issues are the licensing and the
government policies towards the cost of bandwidth:
“I mean the concept has been sort of given in to because of the digital age and
because it does actually help with storage and adaptation and all those kinds
of things, the issue really about OER is the licensing issue, that’s the bottom
line. So for example there was a wonderful address given …in a conference
where …Leicester University’s OER being used by students in Malawi
…to conduct science experiment, with no technology at all, no computers
anywhere, just paper, with a lesson and a set of resources like a banana, a
16
Findings
table and whatever else there happened to be…so OER and technology don’t
necessary go together…Its is not a logical necessity.” SAIDE
“…the factor of cost has nothing to do with the technological capacity; cost is
to do with how deals are made about bringing in internet facilities in this
country. Cost is to do with the licensing that a government charges for a
service provider that wants to bring internet, if they increase the charges the
internet provider passes on the cost to the consumer…Costs are a political
decision not a technical issue.” UNISA
Alternative approaches and innovations towards technology

As a way to counteract the technological challenges, it was established
that alternative and innovative approaches have been adopted around
usage and access of OER. For example most of the places faced with
the technological challenges use the OER in print format. In Uganda
and Kenya, TESSA materials are printed and distributed to the users at
school level.
“We may not be able to access some of these resources because the areas where
we are coming from there is no power, so what we can only access is the
materials that have been downloaded and printed through the assistance of
the university” Egerton University 2
Where teachers can access the technology even if in the cybercafés, CDs
are used as well:
“…we are introducing the CDs; last time they were here we gave them
CDs… but now with a CD they have to look for a computer. That is where
the problem is because the schools out there do not have computers. But the
teachers can be able to use cyber cafes around to see if they can access some of
these materials.” Egerton University 1
17
Another example where alternative approaches have been adopted is

with the use of cached versions of digital resources in cases where there
is low bandwidth. Downloads are done at night and cached versions
simultaneously created. These can later be used without necessarily
being connected.
“So what we are wanting to do is to say lets look at unique affordances of

each of those ways of distributing and making materials and let them speak
to each other and be used judiciously but have in mind that we want to make
more affordable resources available to people…affordable access to digital
publications,… as people download e-books, a cached version of that book is
simultaneously created so that people don’t have to be online when they read
that book… that’s a big issue for Africa… for example we have been
working in Malawi on this e-book project, they have such problems with
bandwidth and slowness that they actually leave the thing downloading when
they go home in the evening and then its there in the morning, but they cant
do it in the day because it is impossible.” SAIDE
One institution has adopted the “Vygotsky’s zone of proximal

development” approach in its attempts to change people’s thinking
towards technology usage. While the end users are provided with the
print versions because they do not have access to the technology, they
also use tutors to support these end users. These tutors are well
equipped with the technology which they are expected to use to support
the end users. As they use these technologies, it is hoped that the users
will learn from them and start using the technologies as well.
18
Findings
“…in a project that we have got... all the people that are engaged in this
course are not connected to any internet, do not know anything about the
computer, there is no possibility of any form of e-learning for the learners, so
don’t go there, give paper-based resources, pen and paper assignments...
however in order to provide support for these learners, we have to employ a lot
of tutors … And it’s the tutors that we are now training and equipping with
laptops and all those tools… But you see what is happening there, we are not
saying, oh well, everything must be paper-based, what we are saying is lets
introduce and push people a little bit, and then those people begin to
understand and explore that environment. That influences the way they relate
with the people they are tutoring … their learners understand that the world
also consists of all of these kinds of technologies and a section of them will
begin to explore those themselves. So that’s the notion. You have to push
people, a little bit, a little bit, Vygotsy’s zone of proximal development…that
applies to the technology”. SAIDE
The study found out that since the perfect OER model was developed
for environments that are well developed digitally, it is difficult for such
a model to work perfectly in environments that have not fully developed
digitally. Therefore, they have to be customized to fit into the local
contexts.
“…look at what is really happening on the ground, stop thinking like the first
world … we will grow much faster if we really understand our context and see
what is appropriate and acknowledge the limitations and tell the Canadians
and the Americans coming into Africa with great minds and great technologies
and all their money…we know you have got a fantastic stuff there, its not
going to work here, this is the context, and we think we need this and this and
the other”. University of Pretoria 1
19
There was a strong view that since Africa is very well connected through
mobile technology, OER should be customized to operate within
mobile technology platforms.
“Do we have any OER site in the world that specifically makes provision for
the small screen of the mobile phone? Not any I know…they develop a site so
that they make access and navigation in site so much easier because it has
links to an instrument of delivery or access to that OER site. So I think
that’s something that I would think might be a very important development
that we can try as Africans.” University of Pretoria 1
Human factors
The study established that human factors affect OER adoption in a
number of ways. These include attitude related issues which in turn
affect people’s capacity to use, re-use and share the resources. Mostly
these issues are interrelated and it is difficult to present them as
individual items. This section thus attempts to bring them out according
to key themes that emerged out of this interrelationship. These include
misconception of OER; concept of ownership and sharing and limiting
capacity to use OER.
Misconception of OER
Although the study mainly targeted people who already have an
understanding of the OER notion, it established that the concept of
OER is not very well understood outside this group of people. It
20
Findings
emerged that most academics are already using or creating OER in one
way or another without realizing that what they are engaging with are
actually OER. For example a number of people using the TESSA
materials had not heard of the word OER before despite using them.
“…there are people using the internet, often they bump into some of them,
they use them, they go and the word OER is news.” Egerton University 3
Other examples included an academic/pathologist in a medical school in

Uganda who is creating digital images of tropical diseases with
annotations and making them openly available, and a music department
that is digitizing music files to make them available not only to the
students but the public. Both cases do not realize that they are dealing
with OER. Interviews with some librarians revealed some good
practices such as exhibitions and open days (see illustration overleaf)
aimed at encouraging academics to open up their research output, yet
they had not heard of the word OER.
21
CC-By: Open Access Week
CC-By: Pauline Nigimwa
Another factor that emerged was the perception that OER lead to extra
work and people are not willing to take on this additional work or do not
think they have the time for it. So there are people who are simply not
interested in adopting these resources. Others will adopt them but not
create time for sharing back.
“…because people see OER as an addition, and its adding work and its
rather an interrupter of my work not a supporter of my work, that sort of a
thing…” University of Pretoria 1
“But they are not that welcoming because they do not want to be much
involved because by the end of the day they want to cover what the syllabus
expects of them. They do not want to sacrifice more time and energy.”
Egerton University 2
22
Findings
Ownership and Sharing

The study also established that there are fundamental factors affecting
ownership and sharing of these resources. Some of these are people’s
notion of ownership and sharing and others are linked to technological
challenges:
a) A “not invented here syndrome” factor

This came about particularly among some academics who felt that their
colleagues have difficulties accepting materials that have been developed
elsewhere.
“… I suppose really the attitude issue is more like certainly in South Africa
the resistance to materials developed by other people, even by people within the
country, and we have hit that, for example there was a suggestion that they
use the OER that were made available and people said no, we don’t believe
in doing that, we must make our own resources…. ours must be better, you
know, it hasn’t been invented here … We actually got a phrase for it which
is called “a not invented here syndrome” SAIDE
b) Academic pride
Related to the above issue is the academic pride which affects their
readiness to use and share resources they have developed:
“…pride of the academicians where they think to acknowledge that actually

this is not my work that it so and so who developed it initially and I modified
it, it seems to erode their pride, so one would rather quietly sneak in and pick
pieces from elsewhere and say this is all mine than acknowledge that this is a
23
shared IP that I inherited from so and so who inherited from so and so and
we have been building it, so there is still that resistance”. University of
Pretoria 2
c) Negative perception that OER is from the West

The fact that the OER concept came from the West has been received
with mixed feelings across different participants. This affects ownership
of these resources. For example some participants felt strongly that they
have been turned into consumers rather than partners of products
developed outside. One participant commented that the reason for this
is because international OER funding is skewed towards western
institutions who in turn give these resources freely to developing
countries as a way of appeasing their conscience.
“Our real problem is that most of the OER kind of initiatives, if you look
at the proportion of funding that goes into OER in the developed world and
the developing world is completely skewed, so vast majority of OER Hewlett
Foundations are actually developed world projects and then they appease their
consciences by saying we will give them to you. I mean what is the point of
that?” SAIDE
24
Findings
d) Culture
© Karega-Munene
Another factor affecting sharing of the resources is associated with the

culture of the people. Africa is largely an oral society where people are
25
more at ease with sharing orally than with writing. Thus, sharing digitally
is alien to most people. Examples were given of instances where users
share excellent experiences with TESSA materials during a conference
and are encouraged to share them in the TESSA portal. Unfortunately
they end up not sharing.
“… I think we still have to do a lot of sensitization for people to stop

sharing orally but begin to use the internet to share… I don’t know if it is a
cultural thing, I don’t know what it is. But we have to encourage people to be
as willing to share on the internet as much as they are willing to talk.”
Makerere University 1
e) Fear and lack of confidence

One other factor affecting people’s readiness to share is fear of exposing
their work for public scrutiny mainly because they lack confidence that
their work is good quality.
“If I came to you and said what do you think about this material? We will
probably talk for about 30mins about it, but if I say, can you put down you
thoughts, you would think twice about it, we still have hung ups, because if
you share about OER, you become vulnerable, your thoughts are in the open,
open to criticism, and you fear that criticism.” Makerere University 1
“I think the basic point that people say ostensibly is that this is my material,
I have copyright for this material, I don’t want to share the material because
it is my own work, that’s their argument but I think implicit in that
argument are people who do not want to expose themselves to international
critique of what they produce, they are not confident enough that their work
can stand both national and international critique and in our case regional
and continental critique.” UNISA
26
Findings
f) Technological limitations
Good internet connectivity is necessary for online sharing of resources
particularly when these resources are PDFs or images which tend to
consume a lot of bandwidth. However, most of the participants are in
environments that have very poor connectivity and expressed this as one
of the reasons why sharing is limited:
“…so I want to make them relevant by contextualizing them or versioning.

Once I have done that, do I feedback what I have done, the answer in many
case is no... Maybe you know we are in the third world, at times connectivity
is poor, you take too long to download, so uploading itself can be a problem,
then there is the cost, I hope with the coming of the fibre optic, maybe things
will be more manageable.” Egerton University 3
Secondly, because limiting technological infrastructure has resulted in

people using print versions of OER, it is difficult for them to share back
because they are not in a digital mindset.
“Our biggest challenge is still that even when you do that, print is still
dominant, so while most of the OER will require that you put back your
revisions so that others can share in it, if what you are doing is for an
audience that was going to read hard copy, the tendency not to put back
because you are not developing for online usage is very strong, you are tempted
to just work offline and make this and so you cannot contribute to the pool
and that breaks the loop that would help give you the opportunity to also
make a contribution and see how your contribution will be received.”
Makerere University 2
27
g) Lack of awareness
It was also noted that even among those who have come to accept OER
and are using them, there are some who do not know that they can share
back what they have used and contextualized. This is related to a point
noted earlier about the misconception of OER.
“…most people have not really understood what OER are and therefore they
need sensitization. Also they need to understand that we can also create to
share with other people.” Egerton University 3
Level of ICT skills

It was noted that potential users of OER have issues to do with limited
ICT skills which hinder effective utilization of OER. This is mainly
among school teachers.
“… as a developing country it is the biggest problem, they are not able to use
the digitized materials as such because of not only the cost involved or the
availability of the internet, but also because of the computer literacy skills.”
However, at the university level, there are some old academics who are
not comfortable with the technology and would not want to expose
their lack of skills.
“a number of them still do not have the skills. You see in this department,
almost everyone is getting to fifty they are all those guys with computer phobia,
only a few make use of it as much. They would not want to be known that
they cannot use the computer so they keep off.” Egerton University 3
28
Findings
These older academics are used to the traditional way of accessing and
using educational resources, they are not ready to adopt new
methodologies that take advantage of the technology. So they are
reluctant to use OER. This contradicts the younger generation which is
at ease with the technology because they have grown up with it and are
thus ready to adopt new methods that rely on the technology. These
ones are more likely to accept OER.
“…some people will not do anything, they are not really interested in that,
they are typical, classical academics who want to be with books around them,
give this information to the students and so I mean on the other hand there
are academics who are more younger, its got also a generation thing, younger
people who grew up with the technology and feel much more at ease,
understand it much better might say this is a great tool to make my work less
not more…” Makerere University 2
IPR related factors

IPR of institutional and academic output was highlighted as a
fundamental issue that is affecting the adoption of OER in Africa. This
ranges from complexities involved in trying to adapt already existing
resources because of complicated license clearance to national and
institutional policies that tend to favour copyrighted resources. The
section that follows presents the various ways this has affected OER
adoption.
29
Complexities involved in adapting existing resources

Examples were given of difficulties involved in trying to adapt already
existing content into OER. This was mainly among institutions that are
already a step ahead in creating OER. This included complex
negotiations and processes in dealing with 3rd party materials.
“The negotiations are difficult…in terms of the contract, because we have

signed the contract…how or what are we allowed to take? The fact is that
the Oxford University have cleared them out of print, so there are various
clauses in the contract that state that when something is out of print, the
original authors can have them back, but there is a distinction at the moment
between database and content rights and our contract specifies content rights
rather than database rights. So in what format will Oxford University Press
give those materials back to us, we are arguing that we would like to be able
to make PDFs which can go through an OCR process, we would like to do
that ourselves, they are obliged through the contract to give us the film but the
film does not help us that much because it really is only suitable for paper
printing, and PDFs are also not that helpful to us because the whole point
about the OER is that they should be able to be adapted, or if they are
PDFs they are locked, you wont be able to adapt. …it’s quite a complex
process…” SAIDE
Resistance to open up content

This is largely an economic issue. For a long time academics the world
over have earned an income from the royalties of the materials they
publish. Among the participants interviewed, there was a strong view
that the majority of the academics would not want to make their output
30
Findings
open because they make a lot of money, more so because these

academics are not always properly remunerated by their institutions.
“But the academics who produce these courses, and programs and degrees and
diplomas and certificates make a lot of money out of that, so they will not
want to let it go….In UNISA right now they do not want to go the route of
OER, because academics make a lot of money out of the copyright materials.
They want IPR to their work.” UNISA
“I have a feeling that there is still a mind lock in the area of copyright, the
idea that I can work hard and put my thoughts down and just make them
available for others to use without a financial benefit to me, getting from what
others have developed I mean that is not so repugnant but when you imagine
that you are going to add in yours and also put it there, that is why I am
seeing many people hesitating.” Makerere University 2
A different but related issue is what can be summed up as national pride

which was pointed out during an interview with a participant in South
Africa. Although this may not necessarily be the case in all countries, it
was noted that South Africa considers herself as a leader in the region in
terms of knowledge production and going the route of OER has the
potential to weaken this preeminent position:
“The other factor is that South Africa is a major player in the region in
terms of knowledge production, so if they go the route of OER, I think some
people feel, I think wrongly, that that preeminent position that they have on
the African continent will be diluted but I believe that if the whole country
goes in a OER direction, I think the preeminent position in South Africa as
a knowledge producer will actually be enhanced. Remember the top university
31
in Africa is the University of Cape Town. It rates about 255 globally.

UNISA is the largest university in Africa. UNISA
Institutional and national policies

Traditionally academics have been promoted on the basis of their
academic output, usually in the form of the amount of publications
produced in accredited publications. There is still vagueness around how
this can be achieved if the output is in the form of OER.
“…the debate about OER adoption, about publication, about the quality,
how do we begin to assess, if something appears as OER will it be considered
as a publication or not if not peer reviewed, and so because of that in terms of
the requirement for progression, for promotion, that is as far as publications
is concerned, that is if anyone want to contribute to that. That is some issue
that will have to be clarified.” University of Pretoria 2
An even more complicated issue was identified in South Africa where

universities are funded on the basis of the number of publications they
produce in accredited journals. This in turn affects the way these
universities reward their individual academics in terms of promotions
and funding for their projects and conference attendance.
“…the other problem we have in this country is that academics are promoted
on the basis of what they write number one, number two is that the
universities get money on articles that academics publish in what we call
accredited journals…the Department of Education partly funds universities
on the basis of the articles that are produced… So the universities that have
got people that publish more, meaning that people who have copyright of their
materials, those universities get more money. So the moment you begin to say
32
Findings
that there is no more IPR on an article, I do not know what is going to

happen, I think it is going to throw the whole thing into disarray. People will
have to rethink how to fund academics, and how to encourage academics and
how to promote them…” UNISA
Policies and their impact on academics’ readiness to open up, share

content and work collaboratively with others was noted during
interviews with librarians. In one institution, there is a clear policy on
how to handle digital content i.e. uploading academic and research
output onto an institutional repository uploading educational digital
resources (i.e. courseware and library digital resources) onto their
learning management system. In another institution, there were no such
policies. It was observed that there was more readiness to share in a
digital environment and work collaboratively where policies existed than
in the institution that did not have these policies.
33
Participants’ suggestions for solutions round the

challenges that are impeding on the adoption of
these resources
This section covers suggestions that came out of the interviews for
solutions of some of the challenges presented above.
Sensitization
Most of the participants interviewed felt that there is a need to sensitize
people on what OER are and their value in teaching and learning. This
kind of awareness creation should include giving people more
information on the whole concept of OER in order to change their ways
of thinking. It should include educating them on the importance of not
just being users but also the whole notion of sharing back what they
have built on. This may change the perceptions of those academics who
think that what they have not authored is not authoritative enough and
hence be willing to use and build on what others have developed.
“…sensitization so that people would know really what OER means. You
know most people have not really understood what OER are and therefore
they need sensitization. Also they need to understand that we can also create
to share with other people. Awareness is lacking. At times even when people
use them it is accidental” Egerton University 3
Such sensitization should be at all levels, i.e. at the national policy

making bodies down to the institutional policy makers and the actual
34
Findings
end users who include university academics and teachers at the school
level. School visits to encourage teachers, conferences and workshops
for decision makers, head teachers and other players, i.e. national
curriculum developers should be used as ways of creating awareness.
“We must also look at the Ministry of Education, what do they think about
it? I am not sure they have been sensitized seriously about it, and then the
actual set up of the university. You must touch those buttons first, if you
want to adopt it. Otherwise, me as a willing person I would think about it in
my teaching because I think it is a good idea, what about people who decide
at the policy level? Those could be an impediment.” Egerton University 1
Versioning for African context

Participants expressed the view that for the OER adoption in Africa to
be effective, there is need to consider the local context and operate
within the provisions of this context. One area that was noted is the
nature of the content. There were views that the content should be
versioned for the African context. The example of TESSA was cited as a
positive approach where the content has been developed by Africans for
their contexts:
35
CC-By: Karen Cropper
“So the issue is not with who posted that, it’s the content, whether it has been
developed by the first world context or by Africans for Africans. And this is
where the TESSA project comes in; they versioned it, they contextualised it
for each country, that is I think very, very helpful in my view.” University
of Pretoria 1
“…so what we are saying is that an idea can be conceived, it does not matter
where, whether in Africa or UK or America, but when you want to use it in
your own set up we want to contextualise it so that it fits our setup. Not to
adopt it wholly the way it is, so like the TESSA booklet if we have to adopt
it in this country, we have to do a lot of modifications to suit our context.”
Another area that was cited is with the application of technology. There
was the view that people need to evaluate the context in view of the
36
Findings
limitations of technologies and contextualize the application of the OER

within what the technology permits.
“… we will grow much faster if we really understand our context and see
what is appropriate and acknowledge the limitations and tell the Canadians
and the Americans coming into Africa with great minds and great
technologies and all their money … we as Africans must sit down and say,
listen, wait, we know you have got fantastic stuff there, it’s not going to work
here, this is the context, and we think we need this and this and the other.”
University of Pretoria 1
The study established that understanding the technology profiles of the

users was the starting point.
Advocacy
The study also established the importance of advocacy especially around
the need to make content open access:
“I think it can only be enhanced by encouraging institutions to go the route of

OER, they already know but I think what they need is just more convincing
that this is the best way to go, that IPR is a thing of the past, just like what
happened with the Encyclopedia Britannica. Because students both
undergraduates and postgraduates levels the only way they can get resources in
countries which cannot afford libraries or textbooks its digital resources that
are OER. And students can just go and download them.” UNISA
Indeed there are already some who are talking about alternative licensing
regimes such as creative commons and encouraging their
37
institutions to go that way. This is in addition to campaigns such as the

Open Access days which promote open access publishing and
encourage academics to open up their content.
“So we are quite passionate about trying to promote the notion of OER as
creative common resources without the unnecessary…permissions and
copyright clearing and all that sort of things… After that we say to people
that write, if you are worried about certain aspects, then you can make
restrictions, but you start open and then justify your restriction rather than
starting closed and then arguing for certain liberties to be allowed, so it’s a
different starting point, which I think it is a lot more helpful” SAIDE
A paradigm shift in how OER are perceived

The study revealed that there is a need to encourage people to change
their ways of thinking towards digital resources generally. Most people
on the African continent are grappling with the challenges presented by
the technology as already noted above. As a result, people’s mindset is
still in the traditional non digital context. Participants of this study
suggested that this should change and people need to undergo a kind of
38
Findings
paradigm shift so as to embrace the possibilities of a technically enabled

environment.
“…you have to be convinced that they work, you have to make that
paradigm shift that knowledge does not come from stacks of books in the
library, that you can sit on a little box, laptops and get materials. ...
Because most of us are not used to sitting down in front of a computer and
read digital resources, most of us prefer to borrow books and read from the
library. .. a paradigm shift at the personal level, at the institutional policy
maker level, and at the national level, those people who make decisions that
affect education and training in whatever sector, whether it is mining, or
health or transport, or fisheries, or science, whatever” UNISA
Participants also felt that this change of the mindset should apply to the
whole notion of what OER are so that people understand that it is
possible to use the resources, adapt them and then share them.
“…you need the openness of mind, the attitude that it is possible to get
materials and it is possible to change it and it is possible for me to share
it…a mindset that …I can take this article and I can analyze it and make
changes to it and share it back.” University of Makerere 1
39
© Heather Scott
40
Conclusion
5 Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to assess the readiness to adopt OER in
Africa. From the findings presented above, it is difficult to conclude
whether Africa is ready or not for adoption of these resources. Going by
the conventional understanding of OER readiness in which technology
is the major benchmark, one can conclude that there are pockets of
readiness. This is mainly in South Africa where the technology is
enabling. Institutions here are well equipped with technology and the
internet penetration is high. There are also institutions such as SAIDE4
which have incorporated OER in their policies and have projects that
are related to creation and usage of OER not only in South Africa but
also in different parts of Africa through OER Africa initiatives.
However, the question of human factors affecting this adoption still
remains a big issue.
4SAIDE stands for South Africa Institute for Distance Education. Their mission and policy can be
found in their website http://www.saide.org.za
41
This study exposed a number of factors that need to be borne in mind

when discussing the subject of readiness for OER adoption particularly
in this context. These factors are discussed below:
The first thing perhaps one should consider is the definition of the term
readiness and what it encompasses. If it is technology, what are the
benchmarks for determining technological readiness? If readiness is
defined in terms of the actual application of OER, what constitutes this
application? Is it application in a digital environment or can other non
digital practices qualify for OER application?
Looking at the issue of the technology, the study revealed that there is a
certain kind of technology that is thriving in Africa. Mobile technology
is being used across all social sectors
including education. This technology
connects people across different social
CC-By: Erik Harsman
levels and classes, so Africa is indeed

well connected. This study therefore
concludes that there is a need to look
into how mobile technology can be used as the technology of choice to
present and exploit the possibilities of OER in this part of the world.
In relation to the application of OER, the study established that Africa is

already using OER but in a different perspective from what is
42
Conclusion
conventional. While the whole idea of OER was conceived to operate

within a digital environment, practices in Africa seem to suggest that
OER are resources in any format and the digital aspect is just one
platform for presenting them. Consequently, OER are being used and
reused in non digital formats because the digital environment is not fully
developed. It may be necessary to do some studies around this area in
order to establish how this can be optimised. For example, since the
study established that one limitation of this practice is the inability to
share because people are in a non digital mindset, how can sharing be
encouraged and what innovative forms of sharing can be developed?
The above two points reinforce the importance of contextualisation not

only of the content but also of the way OER are developed and applied
and the choice of the technology used. As pointed out by one
participant, TESSA’s approach appears to be a success in the sense that
it has used Africans to create African content that fits into their different
contexts and has tried to operate within the provisions of the available
technology. For example, their portal is constructed with the bandwidth
challenges in mind, and the materials are produced in a blended mode.
This is one area that more research needs to be conducted to evaluate
the impact of this approach and how it can be enhanced to suit other
similar projects. Already other Open University projects have adopted
the approach taken by TESSA. Research in this area would therefore
benefit such projects that are coming up and be used to inform other
43
similar projects being carried out in other parts on Africa. In addition,

such good practices should be published in African Fora in order to
encourage dialogue across people who are interested in OER adoption
in Africa.
The study established that an impediment to the adoption of OER is

largely to do with people’s levels of awareness as well as their attitudes.
Already there are places where there are efforts to create awareness.
Awareness creation needs to be strengthened by developing clear
strategies that should be adopted at all levels starting from the policy
makers down to the users. Related to the awareness creation is the fact
that people need to be sensitized to change their ways of thinking, i.e.,
their mindset in relation to the adoption of OER. They need to be
sensitised to the benefits of opening up content and willingness to share
it. For this to be successful, research around effective strategies should
be carried out. This is because a lot of these issues are attitudinal and
cultural and hence unique to this context. Such research would reveal
what forms awareness strategies can work in this context.
Lastly, the challenges around IPR can be overcome through campaigns

such as the Open Access movement which encourage open access
publishing and create awareness of alternative rights protection regimes
like the Creative Commons.
44
OLnet
6 OLnet
The aim of the Open Learning Network (OLnet) is to gather evidence and
methods about how we can research and understand ways to learn in a more
open world, particularly linked to Open Educational Resources (OER) but also
looking at other influences. We want to gather evidence together but also spot
the ideas that people see emerging from the opportunities.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is

supporting The Open University to work with
Carnegie Mellon University to develop OLnet
over 3 years to the end of February 2012. The
project aims to bring researchers and educators
together in an intelligent social network to share
knowledge on the development of OER.
The Open University, UK and Carnegie Mellon University in the States are two
major advocates of equalising access to higher education. OLnet is using
collective intelligence to identify the big questions. Going beyond the
universally available technologies for mass collaboration such as wikis, forums
45
and blogs, the network is analysing community contributions to gain insights

from debate and moving idea generation towards innovative practice. Research
is being focussed on the most urgent educational needs across the globe – from
how OER are most effectively used in developing countries to working out
how anyone can gain qualifications from free access to university course
content online.
Since 2000, the William and Flora

Hewlett Foundation have spent
around $80 million on kick-starting
the OER movement, encouraging
some major players like
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) and The Open
University to provide proof of concept projects like OpenCourseWare (MIT)
and OpenLearn (OU). Globally, over 150 universities are already engaged in the
OER movement. The next step is to encourage more Higher Education
institutions to exploit the knowledge gained in this ’start-up’ phase, making free
access to HE resources universally available. The challenge will also be to
stress-test current knowledge, using emerging technologies to improve on
community generated ideas.
With the growing rise in access to the internet and government’s beginning to
sponsor OER, the time is right for growth. Establishing an evidence base and
46
OLnet
research framework for the emerging field is essential. The key challenge for
OLnet will be in making sure the lessons learnt are taken forward into OER
projects as the movement grows, and the production of OER remains leading
edge whilst becoming commonplace.
CC-By: OLnet Project
47
7 TESSA
TESSA (Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa)

brings together teachers and teacher educators from
across Africa. It offers a range of materials (Open
Educational Resources) in four languages to support
school based teacher education and training.
"perhaps the most successful of all TESSA is a research and development

the OER projects we have heard
initiative creating open educational resources
about"
and course design guidance for teachers and
Sir John Daniel, President and
Chief Executive Officer, teacher educators working in Sub-Saharan
Commonwealth of Learning
African countries.
TESSA has produced a large bank of "The TESSA website …one of

materials directly aimed at enhancing and Africa’s most extensive multilingual
websites for open education resources"
improving access to, and the quality of, local
Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah,
school based education and training for Executive Chair, TESSA and former
Vice Chancellor, University of
teachers. These materials (including audio Education, Winneba, Ghana
and other media) are modular in format. They focus on classroom practice in
48
TESSA
the key areas of literacy, numeracy, science, social studies and the arts and life
skills. All the materials are available through this website in a variety of different
formats and languages.
CC-By: TESSA
49
"The TESSA materials are easily TESSA is a consortium of 18 national and

located in the environment around us international organisations including 13
without having to travel long distances at
high cost" institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa who are
Teacher, Tanzania using the TESSA materials in a variety of
teacher education programmes.
The major funding for TESSA (2005 – 2010) has come from the Allan and
Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust and the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation.
The British Council has provided funding to develop and evaluate distance
teacher education programmes at mass scale in Nigeria and Sudan and the OU
alumni have contributed towards study visits and research scholarships.
50
CREET
8 CREET
CREET (Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology), a

research unit of The Open University, is one of the leading education research
units in the UK. It is an internationally respected centre of excellence, pursuing
innovative and rigorous research that influences policy and practice. CREET
research is multidisciplinary and is united by:
• a focus on learning through diverse media in a wide range of social,

cultural and disciplinary settings;
• a radical, challenging approach to established orthodoxies in policy,

pedagogy, theory and research methods;
• a major thread of socio-cultural theorising with researchers working

across the four broad themes.
The research themes that are being investigated are:

• Childhood and Youth Studies
• Education Studies
• Language and Literacies
• Technology Enhanced Learning
51
In line with the Economic and Social Research Council's most recent policy,
CREET provides three years funding for full-time PhD students. Most students
spend a year completing the MRes first, which provides a solid foundation in
research methods, allowing the student to gain experience of independent
research and to develop those skills needed to organise a large amount of
material and information, an ideal base from which to continue their doctoral
studies for a further three funded years.
More information about CREET can be found at http://creet.open.ac.uk.
52
How this publication was produced
9 How this publication was produced
The production of this publication was a project in itself. We wanted to

publish this report in a format that could be both distributed
electronically and in print form that was attractive and therefore enticing
to pick up.
We opted for blurb (http://www.blurb.com/) as a method of printing

on demand, since this also provides a distribution mechanism (albeit
limited to USA, UK and France at the moment). The standard portrait
size book in blurb is 20 x 25 cm, which is slightly smaller than A4 and
letter (the two more common page settings). The page layout was all
completed in Microsoft Word and the Custom page setting was used.
As well as checking with the author for her own photos, and our
colleagues at the Open University for relevant images, we searched for
images on Flickr by using http://compfight.com/, switching the
creative commons option to 'only' in the top bar, to only get images that
are available to use under this licence.
53
For anyone unsure about the different category of Creative Commons

Licences and what they stand for, there is a good summary on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons.
The cover was created after the word document was complete (and
therefore the number of pages established). The required dimensions
for the number of pages were calculated using the tool on the Blurb
website and then the cover design was produced in Microsoft Publisher.
Both the pages and cover files were then converted to PDFs using
Adobe Acrobat 8 Pro adding in two Custom page sizes matching the
files. The PDFs were then imported to Blurb for the printed book.
For the electronic distribution we looked at various websites for advice

about ebook formats. It turns out there are lots. If you want to find out
more, these websites seemed to give a good overview:
• “Comparison of e-book formats”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats
• “Creating an Ebook in Word and PDF” http://www.ebooks-
made-easy.com/creating-an-ebook-in-word-and-pdf.htm
• “How can I create ePub files from my books?”
http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/how_to_create_epub
54
How this publication was produced
Not wishing to make life difficult (and after some experimentation

converting PDFs to ePub files using Calibre) we decided to stick to just
distributing the PDF file of the pages with a different cover and using
other electronic distribution services. We may revisit this choice when
we see that happens with the PDF.
Karen Cropper (Project and Liaison Manager)

Janet Dyson (Project Co-ordinator).
August 2010
CC By Regents of the University of Michigan
55
10 Useful OER Links
Creative Commons:
Ghana: http://creativecommons.org/tag/ghana
South Africa: http://za.creativecommons.org/
Nigeria: http://creativecommons.org/international/ng/
“Look no Further for OER Search Engines”:

http://blog.curriki.org/2010/07/02/look-no-further-for-oer-search-engines/
Searching for Open Educational Resources, but not sure where to start
looking? This blog post lists OER search engines to find educational content in
any field.
Managing Heritage:
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/memorialisation/index.html
Research on contemporary heritage developments in Kenya, with some
comparative reference to South Africa
Mobile Learning for Development:

http://www.ml4d.org/
New technologies offer endless opportunities for empowering individuals and
communities through access to knowledge, means of expression, and
coordinated action. Mobile and social technologies are penetrating every aspect
of our life; personal, social and professional. Every day we witness new
initiatives to leverage the potential of such technologies in education,
government and civic society. Yet many of these initiatives fail, and those which
succeed are often hard to replicate.
56
Useful OER links
The ML4D initiative aims to engender a design-level discussion among

practitioners in the field, in order to inform them of the challenges and
potential solutions, and to facilitate rapid spread of critical design knowledge.
OER Africa:
http://www.oerafrica.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
OER Africa provides access to all the information needed to learn about and
benefit from Open Educational Resources.
OLnet:
http://olnet.org/
Project which supported this report and aims to search out the evidence for use
and reuse of Open Educational Resources
SAIDE:
http://www.saide.org.za
Increasing Equitable and Meaningful Access to knowledge, skills and learning
through the adoption of open learning principles and distance education
methods
TESSA:
http://www.tessafrica.net/
TESSA brings together teachers and teacher educators from across Africa. It
offers a range of materials (Open Educational Resources) in four languages to
support school based teacher education and training.
57
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OER Readiness in Africa

A report submitted to the OLnet Project, August 2010

Edited by Janet Dyson, Project Co-ordinator, OLnet, August 2010

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Original report produced January 2010

Front Cover By D. L. Manzolillo Nightingale, Women dancing in traditional

Title page D. L. Manzolillo Nightingale, as above

Photo Page By Mobile Learning for Development, Lagos 2010 (Flickr);

Page 1 By Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, Aisha Project School

Page 6 By Dave Patten (Flickr) CC-By-NC-SA

Page 7 By The Lizard Queen (Flickr) CC-By

Page 11 By OER Africa (Flickr); CC-By;

Page 13 By Pauline Ngimwa – a primary school weather station

Page 15 By Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, OER at Aisha Project

Page 22 By Open Access Week, http://www.openaccessweek.org/

Page 22 By Pauline Ngimwa – Open Access Publicity

Page 36 By Karen Cropper

Page 40 By Heather Scott, Visit to Agikuyu Community Peace

Page 42 By Erik Harsman (Flickr); CC-By;

Page 46 From OER10, http://www.ucel.ac.uk/oer10/gallery.html

Page 47 By OLnet Project; CC-By; Most of the OLnet Team with

Page 49 TESSA website

Page 55 By Regents of the University of Michigan, Knust Library

Back Cover By Chubby Chandru (Flickr); CC-By;

9. How this publication was produced 53

10. Useful OER links 56

adopt OER1. This involved an assessment of the technical and human

existing technological infrastructure, establish the extent it supports

creation, access and use/re-use of OER, and identify existing gaps or

limitations. The human factors consisted of elements such as skills

levels, perceptions and attitudes.

1 Open Educational Resources

The study revealed that there is a positive perception of OER among

2 Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (http://www.tessafrica.net/)

In relation to readiness to adopt OER, the study established that levels

The study established that technology is not really an impediment

The study however established that the fundamental impediment

People’s attitudes affected the concept of ownership and sharing. This

“They would not want it to be

IPR3 of institutional and academic output was highlighted as an

Effects of policies also impacted on academics’ readiness to share and

Finally, the study identified certain suggestions to mitigate the identified

3 Intellectual Property Rights

African context in terms of content and technology adopted, using the

highlighted as an important starting

Broadly speaking, the study established that levels of and factors

This section presents these findings with supporting excerpts from

then how national and institutional policies contribute to IPR challenges.

General perception and usage of OER

can therefore be understood why most of their views concerning OER

They also saw them as a means of expanding equitable access to

“…when we think access and the core mission of our organization is to

Examples were provided of how some academics are using these

Another example where TESSA materials have been used innovatively

“… I realised that the topic weather that is in our Kenyan curriculum is

South Africa is more improved than

However, it was noted that access to the technology in South Africa is

“Every academic is entitled to either a laptop or a desktop… The heads of

Different views towards technology challenges

Alternative approaches and innovations towards technology

Another example where alternative approaches have been adopted is

“So what we are wanting to do is to say lets look at unique affordances of

One institution has adopted the “Vygotsky’s zone of proximal

Other examples included an academic/pathologist in a medical school in